• fletch •
Pronunciation: flech • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun, verb
Meaning: 1. (Noun) Feather, especially if used as the vanes in the back of an arrow that stabilizes it. 2. To provide an arrow with vanes of any material.
Notes: 
Here is another word that comes from the archery vocabulary. The verbal use provides a personal noun, fletcher "someone who makes (bows and) arrows", more popular in olden days than now except, capitalized, as a surname Fletcher. Fletchery refers to the wares and goods of a fletcher. Both of these words will be encountered in our historical readings more than the modern ones.
In Play: This word will appear in literature mostly as a verb: "Harry Bowman is a dyed-in-the wool toxophilite, who fletches his own arrows with some kind of fletching tool." However, the noun is still available: "Harry uses chicken fletches in his arrows."
Word History: Everyone assumes that today's Good Word is a back-formation of a borrowed French word flechier "fletcher", a derivation of flèche "arrow". French obviously borrowed flèche from a Germanic language since it seems to have come from PIE pleu-/plou- "flow, fly, sail, swim", and P did not become F in Romance languages. We find pleu-/plou- in Sanskrit plavate "swims", Greek pleusomai "sails, swims", Latin pluere "to rain" and pluma "down, plume", Russian plyt', plyvu "swim, sail", Serbian ploviti "to sail" and plivati "to swim", Lithuanian plaukai "hair", Latvian peldēt "to swim", Albanian flutur "butterfly", Romany (Gypsy) flutura "wave, flutter, fly", German fliegen "to fly", English fly (Old English fleogan), fledge, flood, fleche, and flow. (Now let's thank Wordmaster George Kovac of Miami for finding today's long-lost Good Word and sharing it with us.)
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